2008/05/15

I don't usually watch the Joyce Meyer TV show. I don't like the clothes she wears, I don't like her theology, and I don't like the way she talks. The whole thing makes me feel like I'm at a washateria. But I am curious enough about Joyce that if I happen to run across one of her TV sermons I'll stop and listen for a few minutes. This is what she said on my TV yesterday.

If God is in control then you don't need to know why.

If I were guessing, I'd say that fully half of the angst in my life is over the question of why. I won't give you a litany of all my big WHY questions. You probably have enough of your own without hearing mine.

Why... all those things. Why indeed. And I've spent a good deal of time thinking, praying and bitching about my own why questions. But all of them boil down to WHY. Why.

I am a Christian, have been for a long time. I know that God is in control. I do. I know it. Yet I feel almost as if I have a right to know why certain things are the way they are. Not that I question God but sometimes it does seem like He may not have all the facts. If only I knew what God was thinking, maybe I could be of some assistance, helpful soul that I am.

In her own special way, Joyce Meyer finally gave me the perspective I've been missing on that. Probably the rest of you were reluctant to say it to me. But, it's just none of my business. What God does, why God does it... It's none of my business. I don't need to know.

I find it easier to trust God when God is doing things that I understand, especially if they are kind of in the direction I was trying to lead Him anyway... Know what I mean? But, if I really have any confidence in God, if I have any faith at all, then maybe I will get out of the business of monitoring God's activities and allow myself to be the subject of them, maybe I will stop passing judgment on God's reasoning and accept the fact that it is too high up there for me, maybe -- just maybe -- I can stop being God and let God do it for awhile.

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comments:

And to think, just months ago you were so disappointed in me for being drawn to Joyce when she said, "Stop being bitter and get better."

I see Joyce much like you do. Annoying nasal tone, a dreadful wardrobe, terrible complexion, but sometimes when I am peddling to no-where on the stationary bike and surfing channels, I am drawn into what she is saying and I stop to listen for a little bit.

Every once in awhile, you find something good.

I also made a difficult decision the other day to ask Shark to go to a few couples counseling sessions before the big day. I am beginning to get cold feet, so the first session will be for me, the others will be for us both. I'm a little scared.

Well, you've helped me with my tendency to judge people like Joyce and dismiss them. God worked through her, and you were open to that! Thanks for sharing, as I probably would not have kept the tv on--judging is hard to give up!

oh, about Joyce, what everyone said. (shudders). I have to say that I have a terrible time with her. But maybe I'm just bitter because she has written and sells lots of books and I've... well, you get my drift. I have to admit, this one sentence is pretty good, though.

I believe that God is in control. I even believe that God, in Jesus, was in control on the cross. It was in not using the control he had -- and, in fact, giving it to others -- that Jesus' death became redemptive for the rest of us.

In writing about resisting evil Swami Vivekananda says this: "The one who from weakness does not resist, commits a sin, and there fore cannot receive any benefit from his nonresistance; while the other would commit a sin by offering resistance." Swami Prabhavanda explains that by saying that we must gather the power to resist; having gained it, we must renounce it.

I think that God has it. I think that Jesus had it. So does the Holy Spirit. It's a god-quality to have all power and knowledge and to also have control. But, the quality that runs parallel to that is the will to relinquish such power.

Now what that means to me in real life is that there are times when I -- not God -- have been granted control which is not really my own. The authority that Jesus gives us is not for us to use for ourselves, it's more of a trust. It obligates more than it empowers.

There is a temptation to take a fatalist approach and say "Oh, God is in control so I have no responsibility." But, the other temptation,the one which says we are in control, implies that we also set the agenda.

I think that it's in exercising control that has been given to us, and on behalf of an agenda that is not our own, that we find the right balance.

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You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this.